Health Spending: A Case Study

The Affordable care act was enacted in order to reform the health insurance industry and to make health insurance more affordable and to provide better health care coverage for the citizens of the United States. The Obama administration set out with the goals of: expanding access to health insurance, lower the uninsured rate, and to reduce the costs of healthcare. The focus of the act is to use regulations on the federal and state level to maximize health care coverage for all citizens of the U.S. In this section I will examine the factors that have come to play into the creation of the affordable care act and the back ground

Societal beliefs and values influence the Affordable Care act. The health care budget is under constraint, how to provide the most recent and enhanced health care while saving money has become a major issue. With this new health reform, millions of Americans who could not afford insurance with their employers or are uninsured due to lack of employment have the opportunity to become insured. The major economic change in this society has created enormous challenges for workers, families, as well as employers. The implementation of this act reduced this plague in the health delivery system.

Healthcare in the United States is in a crisis situation. Healthcare costs are rising to the point where people are required to pay their health insurance premiums and deductibles over having enough money to cover groceries to feed the family. It seems our government is at odds in terms of the success with the Affordable Care Act and the outcomes we are witnessing from its’ implementation in our country. Many Americans understand the incentives of having healthcare insurance coverage and the benefits it can provide. With so many more individuals entering the healthcare insurance marketplace due to the guidelines of the Affordable Care Act we also see an impact to the supply and demand of healthcare availability and healthy outcomes.

The purpose of The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is to increase access and make it more affordable for all Americans. Unfortunately, the US health care delivery system lacks the ability to plan, direct, and coordinate from a central agency making it difficult for citizens to obtain health coverage. For that reason, The Affordable Care Act in 2010 became the most extensive health care reform in US history with its main objective to reduce the number of uninsured. The ACA permitted some standards in the health care delivery system to achieve universal coverage. Some examples were authorizing health insurances to start covering children and young adults below the age of 26 under their parents’ health insurance plans also allowing the law to lower

On the whole, the Affordable Care Act reduces healthcare costs while providing better quality services for citzens accross the US. Farley says that the ACA’s reforms to Medicare saved “17 billion in fiscal year 2013” thanks to reductions in payments to private health insurance companies cover their customers through Medicare Advantage as well as adjustments to the annual updates to Medicare provider rates (Farley, 2014). This protects consumers from excessive charges by their insurance providers, by limiting how much insurance providers spend on their own services. And even though the cost of health care, per capita, is gradually increasing, the rate of that growth has decreased over time, thanks to the stipulations, as well as method of implementations, of the ACA. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++=

With 50 million uninsured Americans in 2010, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) aimed to insure nearly everyone with “minimum essential” health insurance coverage. The ACA provides that all Americans and individuals lawfully present in the United States be provided health insurance regardless of their health or financial situation. It strengthens existing forms of health insurance coverage, while building a new health insurance market for individuals and families who do not have employer coverage or another form of “minimum essential coverage” such as Medicare or Medicaid. In addition, the ACA imposes fees or assessments on health insurance providers. The fees meant to be absorbed by insurance providers will impact premiums for all individuals covered under fully insured or self-funded plans and policies.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted in March, 2010. The purpose of this law is to reform public and private health insurance systems resulting in expanded coverage for millions of Americans by the year 2023. Full implementation of the Act, will result in a reduction of the number of uninsured U.S. citizens by more than one-half (Rosenbaum, 2011). The ACA “expands Medicaid eligibility to include all individuals and families with incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty level” (Riggin, 2013).

More than 45 million Americans are uninsured. Even those that do have health insurance often face financial and other barriers when getting healthcare. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) removes most of these financial barriers (Kocher, Emanuel, & DeParle, 2010). The ACA guarantees access to healthcare and creates new incentives to change clinical practice, but some might be surprised to learn that the financial price tag attached goes beyond healthcare costs and taxes which all Americans will pay for costs

The primary goal of the Affordable Care Act was to expand health care access to Americans and subsequently reduce the number of uninsured in the nation. From September 2013 to March 2015, there was a significant reduction in uninsured Americans from 17.6% to 10.1% (Anderson, Hempstead, Karpman, Kenney, Long, Shartzer, Wissoker, Zuckerman , 2015). This was achieved through the new laws affecting private insurance and the expansion of the government’s Medicaid program. The ACA started the process by extending tax credits to an estimated 4 million small businesses that would help them provide insurance for their workers in 2010 (Implementation, 2016). In 2013, a marketplace exchange was finally opened for the American people to compare and purchase

“Medicaid has evolved into the nation’s largest health insurance program (Knickman & Kovner, A., 2015).” This was not the government’s intention in the beginning, Medicaid was mainly for a safety net. During the 90’s and early 2000’s the rise of health care costs, and the loss of jobs led to a large population of uninsured people. Even if people could afford to purchase their insurance, some were unable, because of pre-existing conditions, and the insurer would not sell them a policy. Obama passed the ACA, in order to remedy this situation, there may be pros and cons to the health policy, but nobody will deny that the medical problems in the country were affecting the economy and people in a negative way (Knickman & Kovner, A.,

In 2012, the Medicaid spending grew over 2% and the total healthcare spending was around $416 billion dollars. By the end of 2014, the healthcare spending for Medicaid is projected to be over 12%. This brings the enrollment total to increase by over eight million dollars. Depending of the individual’s finances dictates the type of insurance that they possess. Some people can afford private health insurance. The private health insurance is

The United States spends more on health care than any other country in the entire world. The current level of national expenditures is astounding. According to us.governmentspending.com, the anticipated total of healthcare spending in the United States is $7,400.00 per person each year (Kaiser, 2009). Over the years the total of healthcare spending has continued to increase at a rapid rate. In 2009 healthcare costs accounted for 16% of the U.S. GDP ("Health care expenditures:," 2009 ). This paper will discuss different aspects of healthcare costs in the United States and what makes it better or what makes it worse.

Compared to other Western countries, the United States spends more per capita on health care than any other nation. In 1990; for example, national expenditures for health care were more than 40% comparing to Canada during the same period, whose spending was the second highest. Despite the enormous expense of health care in the United States, the general standards of health, such as life expectancy and infant mortality, are not as high as those in countries which spend less. Currently, the U.S. has a health care system based on insurance coverage; hence, the majority of the population is covered by private/employer-based insurance. Generally the employer pays a major part of the insurance premium and the individual pays a deductible

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) came into federal law in March 2010 and was drafted by the Obama Administration. ACA is often referred to as “Obamacare” and one of the major objectives of the Affordable Care Act is to provide Americans with health care insurance. There are many types of individuals that will be seeking coverage through Obamacare. There are many types of benefits and drawbacks to any new health care policy and ACA has many of both. The Affordable Care Act has made a substantial impact on Medicaid and Medicare programs and well as health care in general. All of these will be discusses in this paper.

Healthcare spending is in a crisis in our country, one that contributes to excessive financial stress and insecurity of numerous individuals today (Komisar, 2013). Healthcare costs are a growing burden for all, especially middle-class individuals in the United States (Komisar, 2013). Hard-working families are struggling to cope with high insurance premiums and higher out-of-pocket medical expenses, all while being provided less services in return (Komisar, 2013). According to Komisar (2015), one in five people experience problems in paying for medical bills and experience serious financial stress paying for other necessities for their families. In our country, wages have not been able to keep up with the rising costs of health care, and as a result, health insurance premiums are “crowding out other important priorities for workers, such as saving for retirement or for their children’s college education” (Komisar, 2013, p. 3).